Thursday, March 21, 2013

Henry Waxma, Global Warming, and Leaps of Faith

Congressman Henry Waxmanis so concerned about "climate change", that he dedicated another Twitter Account to the issue @WaxmanClimate.Recently, Congressman Henry Waxman has been reaching out to "faith communities" to "pray up" support for "climate change" intervention. Some of his tweets include:We should heed the faith community’s call to action on #climatechangehttp://1.usa.gov/ZQZrFsthenWe are called upon to be good stewards of our environment and address #ClimateChange before irreparable harm is done http://1.usa.gov/ZQZrFsand alsoProtecting the #climate is one of the great moral challenges of our time. http://1.usa.gov/ZQZrFs #ClimateChange#ForwardonClimateFrankly, just because "faith communities" claim that "climate change" is a "big deal" does not make it a big deal, no more than if groups of people coalesced to declare "2 + 2 = 5" does it change the fundamentals of mathematics. Truth and substance are not based on the number of people who agree or disagree. Scientific evidence is based on rigorous research, experimentation, inquiry, review, and a healthy skepticism in the face of diverse opinions or divergent facts.I﻿ commented at Waxman's townhall meeting﻿ in Hermosa Beach on January 30 that I believe in "climate change". I recognize that it has been getting a little warmer these days. Am I worried about it? No. Should the federal government enact far-reaching executive enforcement and legislative fiat to protect everyone of us from the slightly rising temperatures? Not at all.Research in ﻿media hype﻿ confirms my doubts about "climate change". To assist my doubts, a recent program from "﻿CBS Sunday Morning﻿" focused on four difference scientists, each of which acknowledged that the world is getting a little warmer. What causes it, what to do about, whether to worry about, remained as divisive and unsubstantiated as ever a conclusion among the four revered scientists.Forbes magazine offers some decisive rebuttals to the "climate change" cacaphony, charging that the world is recovering form a "Little Ice Age" in the 19th Century. Human beings thrive in warmer climates. And no one has determined the "correct" temperature for the earth. If a business magazine is not authoritative , the "Climategate" revelations among different "global warming" scientists should grant enough pause on this issue. Emails sent among scientists suggested that data were skewed to justifying a conclusion of dangerous climate distortions.An extensive number of American scientists have pledged that "climate change" is not the threat that activists claim it to be, as well. How many? 31,000, and counting. The community of experts would suggest that healthy skepticism resides among respectable scholars of science on this issue. The fact that such wide debate exists should cause Waxman and his colleagues to pause on this issue.But what about all of "those wildfires"? Does that not suggest that the world is getting too hot?One New York Times blog shared the following:Scientists taking part in a conference call on Thursday arranged by the nonprofit science outreach group Climate Communication said that while they could not apportion blame to a specific factor, there was agreement that this week’s events fit into a pattern of extreme weather events and catastrophic fires that climate scientists predict will only worsen in decades to come.They could not "blame a specific factor. The scientists cited then claimed that weather patterns will "worsen". How can they be so sure? Scientific inquiry requires hypothesis, research, and conclusion, yet nothing concrete has emerged.Patterns over history perhaps suggest that the weather trends mean nothing but hotter weather in the future. Different sources refute this argument:NASA has shared the following data, with the following conclusions:The world is getting warmer.I have not disputed that. Is it a threatening development, a mere trend, or something that the government can do anything about?Washington Post columnist George Will's article on "Climate Change" cites numerous sources, all of which indicate that periods of cooling and warming have dotted the past two decades, and aside from media scrutiny, there have been no Category Three Hurricanes since Katrina in 2005. Superstorm Sandy was devastating, but what can one expect when a hurricane hits concentrated, urban populations with overseeing, intense media conglomerates all along the Eastern Seaboard. Louisiana media outlets did not possess such media influence in 2005, nor was the region as urban or as populated. These facts do not diminish the devastation of those storms, nor can they suggest that "climate change" is the all-powerful cause and effect of larger trends to come.Rebuttal articles have contended that George Will cherry-picked a limited time frame, or that his rhetorical efforts are propaganda out of frame climate change "enthusiasts" as "scare-mongers. Yet the diversity of opinion is compelling enough to suggest pause and reflection, rather than alarm and intervention. The growing miasma about "climate change" (or "global warming"?, or "ozone depletion"?) is starting to look more like a blind leap of faith, one with consequences both ﻿unwarranted and unsupportable﻿.